Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Behind her, Linghe stared in open-mouthed amazement.

Her mistress had just been admiring the new jewelry from Zhuixing Jewelry Shop in the carriage. How had she started crying the moment she turned around?

She could change her expression faster than an actress onstage.

The guard had never faced anything like this: a delicate young lady standing at the gates of the imperial prison, shedding tears.

He glanced to either side, quickly tucked the banknote inside his clothes, and stepped aside.

“Be quick, Miss Si. A quarter of an hour at most. Please don’t make things difficult for me.”

With tears in her eyes, Si Yan nodded. Carrying her purchases, she entered the imperial prison alone.

Inside and outside the prison were two different worlds.

Blood. Mold. Excrement and urine. Rust. Rot.

All those foul smells mingled into a stench that made her want to retch.

The cells on either side of the passage were crammed with filthy, disheveled prisoners. At the sound of footsteps, they raised their heads.

Some showed numb, blank faces. Some whistled. Others gave strange, leering chuckles, baring yellow teeth.

Only when the guard struck the iron bars with his scabbard and barked at them did they retreat into the shadows and fall silent.

Si Yan had been pampered since childhood. Her room was scented with fine agarwood, and her clothes had to be perfumed with osmanthus hair oil before she would wear them.

When had she ever smelled anything like this?

Her stomach churned at once, acid surging into her throat.

She pressed a handkerchief over her nose and walked straight ahead without looking aside, squeezing out tears as she went.

At the innermost cell, she stopped.

There was no window, only a ventilation hole in the wall the size of a palm.

A layer of moldy straw covered the floor, darkened almost black, with patches of suspicious dampness.

A man lay on the straw, utterly motionless, as though dead.

Si Yan stood dazed outside the iron door, her fingers tightening around her bundle. She almost failed to recognize him.

How many days had it been?

In her memory, Jiang Youze always wore a moon-white robe, a jade pendant at his waist and a jade crown securing his hair.

When he smiled, his expression was as gentle as a March breeze brushing across a lake.

When he rode down the long street, young girls by the roadside would pretend to bend over their shopping, stealing sidelong looks at him.

He had placed first in the imperial examinations at sixteen and spoken with ease and assurance when answering questions in the imperial hall.

Before all the civil and military officials, the emperor had praised him as “the Jiang family’s jade tree.”

Back then, he had been so distinguished, so full of spirit.

As though all the light in the world had favored him with an extra beam.

And now?

His prison clothes were in tatters, his trousers covered in dried blood that had turned black.

She dared not think where that blood had come from.

His hair hung loose. Bruises marked his face, and his cracked lips were peeling white.

He curled in the corner like an abandoned dog, without even the strength to struggle.

“Here we are, Miss Si.” The guard stopped at the heavy iron door, took out a key, and unlocked it.

He lowered his voice to remind her once more. “A quarter of an hour. You must leave when the time is up.”

At the sound, the man inside opened his eyes.

Eyes so still they were almost lifeless looked straight at her.

His gaze swept over her, lingering for two seconds on the jade pendant at her waist.

“What are you doing here?” His voice was terribly hoarse, his tone utterly cold.

Had she come to break off the engagement?

Of course. He had waited for her all those days in the imperial prison, and she had not come.

When they had held him down for the punishment in the castration quarters, she had not come.

Now that it was all over, here she was.

What could she want except to end their betrothal?

He tried to push himself up from the straw, wanting to spare himself a little humiliation.

The slightest movement tugged at his wound. His brow had barely begun to crease before he smoothed it again.

But Si Yan’s eyes reddened at once.
It was true that when disaster first struck his family, she had intended to sever the betrothal completely.

She had not stopped liking him. Liking him simply did no good.

His whole family had been condemned. He was a criminal sentenced to castration. How could she marry him?

By burying everyone at the minister’s residence alongside him?

Yet seeing him like this still felt as though something had seized her heart and squeezed it hard.

The tears that had begun as pretense now fell in earnest.

“Brother Youze… Don’t move!”

Si Yan lifted her skirts and rushed inside. No longer caring about the filth, she crouched in front of him.

Her skirts spread over the dirty straw, staining the plain silk at once.

She set down her things, supported his back, and helped him sit against the wall.

They were too close.

The smell of his body rushed into her nose, setting her stomach churning again.

She fought down the urge to retch and used the moment to turn and fetch her bundle.

“I brought medicine for your wounds. Wound salve, powder to stop the bleeding, pills for fever. All the very best.”

Her voice shook with tears, which kept falling as Jiang Youze watched.

Some of the lifelessness left his eyes. His old tenderness returned, only to darken again almost at once.

She was doing all this because she wanted to end the engagement.

A sweet before the knife. Would that make her feel better?

Si Yan lifted the lid of the food carrier and took out the nourishing soup she had bought at Fanlou Restaurant.

Its fragrance immediately drifted out, masking the foul smell.

She secretly drew a deep breath of it. At last her stomach felt a little better.

“Brother Youze, are you hungry? Let me feed you some soup.”

She scooped up a spoonful and held it to her lips to blow it cool, taking the opportunity to breathe in the aroma.

Then she brought the spoon to Jiang Youze’s lips and looked up at him with red, swollen eyes.

“Try it. It’s the medicinal pigeon soup from Fanlou Restaurant. I queued for ages to get it.”

Jiang Youze said nothing. His gaze moved from the pendant at her waist to her face.

She wore no rouge or powder. Her face was bare.

Her brows were unpainted, her lips untouched by color. She was unnaturally pale.

Tears still clung to her lashes, trembling and bright. The tip of her nose was red too.

It did not look like an act.

But what was there about him now that deserved her tears?

Si Yan held the spoon suspended in the air. Several breaths passed, and still he showed no sign of opening his mouth.

Her eyes reddened again. This time, she truly felt hurt.

“Are you angry with me for not coming sooner, Brother Youze?”

She lowered her eyes and lifted her chin slightly, exposing her pale face to the light.

“I was ill. I burned with fever for three days and nights. I almost died. Today was the first day I could get out of bed, and I came straight here.”

“Mother tried to stop me. She said the imperial prison was no place for a young lady.”

Her voice caught. “But you’re suffering in here. How could I stay away?”

Jiang Youze studied her face for a long time.

She had indeed grown thinner.

Her chin was noticeably sharper than when he had last seen her, her face pale and drained of blood.

She did not seem to be lying.

So had his family’s ruin made her fall ill?

And the moment she woke and could stand, she had hurried over to break off the engagement.

“You needn’t go to all this trouble.”

One corner of Jiang Youze’s mouth twitched, as though in a smile, or in mockery of himself.

“I’ll agree to end the engagement. I won’t stand in the way of your finding a better match.”

He turned his head aside, looking at neither her nor the spoon in her hand.

He was afraid one more look at her would make him unable to keep from changing his mind.

“Leave the pendant. Go home.”